


Communal Living

by starkraving



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Family Dynamics, Found Family, Friendship/Love, Gen, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Precognition, Protective Yasha, Team Bonding, Team as Family, Trust Issues, and worrying about him, just a little, just a little bit, yasha being nice to molly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 16:22:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15271464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkraving/pseuds/starkraving
Summary: Yasha has lightning in her bones and thunder in her footsteps. She’s called by the storm and there’s a hurricane in her soul. But Mollymauk isn’t tethered to anything so certain and Yasha… she still worries. AKA: Yasha lowkey bothers all the party members to determine if they’ll look out for her odd circus buddy when she’s not around.





	Communal Living

The first time Yasha worries about him, she’s known Mollymauk exactly one week. She finds him somewhat aggravating for many, many reasons. He’s loud, obnoxious, and overly familiar, a double-talker, a wise-guy. He’s an eyesore of color and motion. He’s pretty in a way that’s just north of masculine and a little eerie on a lavender-skinned tiefling. He’s proud of it too. All that would be fine, except he won’t stop grinning at her. This is made particularly unnerving by the constitution of his eyes which are very nearly pupiless and dark red, like the viscous gel is infused with blood, faintly lit by a dark, internal shine. She can never tell if he’s side-eyeing her.

The worst part though: He likes her.

He likes her despite knowing. And, oh yes, he knows what Yasha is.

He recognizes her kind. She sees it in his face the moment he lays eyes on her and the dread that spikes through her becomes confusion when he just grins that needle-point smile and says nothing to Gustav. After that, he won’t stop following her around. He materializes cross-legged on top of wagons she’s unloading, his tail twitching like gleeful cat. He appears suddenly behind her in line of chow. He brings her tea on her breaks. He asks her how she’s fitting in. If there’s anything he can help with. What’s her favorite color? Does she want help braiding her hair? Does she want company? Does she know how to play cards? Would she like to dance? Drink? Check out this weird flower he found.

He’s awful.

And Yasha is horrified to admit she isn’t sure what she’d do without his relentless pestering.

Because, in fact, being well-liked by Mollymauk has a warming effect on the rest of the circus crew who are an insular and suspicious lot, wary of newcomers and tolerating her solely on the grounds of her physicality and aesthetic: A pale giantess among them. A flavor of freak that may suit them and she finds herself, dimly, wanting their acceptance. Why? She’s not sure. Because the road’s been long these last months. Because if she cannot get along among this country’s strangest folk, how is she going to get along anywhere?

One day, Bo pulls her of set up duty to help Molly with the promoting.

Molly is their best promotor which doesn’t seem possible, but horns, purple skin, fangs and all, Molly can play to a crowd apparently. Yasha is instructed only to ‘keep him outta trouble’ and nothing more.

“They love you,” Molly says, patting her bicep after Bo gives her yet another lukewarm glare.

“If you say so,” she says.

Molly beams up at her, his incisors glinting and hooks his arm through her elbow in this gallant, ridiculous way and hauls her into the streets of yet another Podunk down. She cannot fathom the level of energy put into being that aggressively friendly but Molly has it and he spends that capital into the suspicious crowds of this quaint farming village. He breaks away from Yasha and leaps up on a bench in the village green. He grandstands to no one at all, a flourish of coat and lashing tail, all sparkle and grin, until people gather just to stare. And once they’re staring he starts.

The crowd is a little hostile, actually. A little boy throws an apple at him but Molly nabs it from the air and takes a massive, fanged bite of it. He heckles and leers. Shrugs slurs and stares. He bullshits through his teeth, hawking fortunes, wonder, and spectacle. They boo him. He boos back. They call him names. He calls them worse, but poetically, lyrically, so impressively there is applause. By the end of fifteen minutes he’s sitting with someone’s dotty little dog in his lap, reading a woman’s fortune while Yasha, baffled, passes out flyers to a few docile locals.

Molly catches her eye as he’s turning a card.

He grins at her and for a moment, just a moment, she stops watching the crowd.

So she doesn’t see it in time. The man standing, previously idle at Molly’s right, twists, rears back and brings a bottle down across the back of Molly’s head. It shatters against the rams curl of his horns, breaking off and dragging across his skull but Molly doesn’t scream. He gasps. His head snaps forward. Blood splatters the cobble stones and Yasha – she’s grabbing the man by the arm, pivoting, and with a single one-arm shot-put hurl she puts that man fifteen feet across the green where he lands like a stone, carving a rut of mud in the grass.

She whirls. “Molly!” She hits one knee beside him, disrupting his card layout. “Are you alright?”

“Ow,” Molly says.

He says ‘ow’ like you say ow when you whack your elbow on a table, not when you get glassed by a racist farmhand. Then he looks up at her. And Yasha just stares because There’s frost in his hair, a diamond layer of ice crusted up the base of his right horn and spiraled up along the bone. Not a trace of blood on his skin, but the ice is… it’s in the cuts along his temple spidering out from the gashes. He touches gingerly at the strange layer of ice.

“Shit. That’ll happen. Welp.” He grins at her again, frost glittering in his eyelashes and spiraled along the crest of his cheekbone. “Guess this place is burned. Shall we go?”

Yasha probably overreacts, looking back on it.

She grabs Molly. Full seizes him like a sack of potatoes in her arms, hefting him up before he can do a damn thing to stop her and she literally runs sprinting out of that village. He seems surprised of course. It’s not exactly a dignified thing, her hucking him over her shoulder and racing across the town. He yells at her the whole way that he’s fine and he can walk, thanks, but eventually gives up and lets her run him all the way back the circus, looking deeply amused and annoyed the entire time.

“You know what this means,” Molly says, later, bringing her a plate from the chow line.

She stares.

He puts a mug of chamomile tea by her hand.  “You get to be my body guard all the time now.”

She stares longer. Then, when Molly just goes about eating his meal and not elaborating, she says, “I did a terrible job, Molly. I let them hurt you.”

He shrugs and scoots her plate closer to her. “I was being cocky. Should have read that crowd better. And, besides,” he grins at her, “you’ll never let it happen again, right?”

She just keeps staring.

“You should eat that,” he says, nodding to the plate. “You’ve had a rough day.”

Yasha worries then, and only then, about Mollymauk Tealeaf.

 

* * *

 

 

Jester is very carefully, lovingly, doodling an obscenely large dick onto one of Fjord’s shoulder satchels when she senses she’s not alone. She turns around. There are boobs at eye level with her.

“Hmm,” she says, speculatively, then looks up. “Hello, Yasha! How are you this evening?”

Yasha blinks down at her from her considerable vantage, her pale eyes momentarily puzzled. Then she leans slightly to the left to inspect Jester’s work. Jester detects that her right brow arches infinitesimally upward, then she comes back to center and folds her arms over her chest. When she does his, her biceps settle, straining slightly against leather strap that wraps her arm. Jester admires that for happy moment, then beams back up at Yasha.

“You seem like you have a question?”

“Yes. If you’re done…?” She glances at the dick vandalism. “Done doing… that?”

“Yes. I’m all done,” Jester insists, through her image is not quite achieving the throbbing veiny-ness that she’s originally envisioned. But Yasha seems like she’s anxious to ask whatever she’s thinking about, so Jester forgoes her artistic ambitions. “What do you want to talk about? Is it good? Is it gossip?”

“No, it’s about…something else,” she says slowly.

“Oh, boo. Okay.”

Jester abandons the pile of personal belongings by the wagon and leads Yasha a small distance to the fireside which is presently unoccupied – the others having mostly dispersed to set up camp for the night. She can hear Molly arguing with Fjord about the appropriate way to pitch a tent, then laughing at his pun while Fjord makes simultaneous noises of rage and admiration.

Yasha takes a seat and Jester sits across from her.

She looks very serious in the fire-light, the glow licking up her pale cheek and glittering in her impassive eyes.

“Do you think this group will last together?” Yasha asks.

Jester thinks. “Well, I like everyone in our group, even though a few of them are a little grumpy or weird. But everyone is a little grumpy or weird sometimes and I think that’s probably fine and also not a sign that we cannot, like, work together for the greater good.” A beat. “And money.” Another beat. “And also we are all perhaps wanted for mail fraud and man slaughter and it is best to stick together. I don’t know. Maybe.”

Yasha nods, mulling over her words.

“Fjord said something back in Zadash when we were all under your truth spell. I want to talk about that.”

“Oh! Okay. I am happy, by the way, that you think people in our group are very attractive.”

She beams.

Yasha pauses and clears her throat a little.

“Uh, yes, well… Fjord said to Molly, that there was a difference between something being a danger to Molly and something being a danger to the group. Do you agree with Fjord?”

It’s Jester’s turn to blink.

“Well, teeeeechnically, Fjord is right. If a big rock fell on Molly and he was not, like, standing next to us then that would just be a danger to him, but that is not what you are asking of course. Let me think.” She ponders. “I think that I disagree, but also I think the Fjord was also right to make that distinction. We have not all known each other very long, though, we have known each other long enough to maybe be wanted for manslaughter so things are moving very fast I suppose –”

“Jester,” Yasha interrupts, gently, but maybe a little annoyed.

Jester twines a bit of her hair around her fingers, her tail lashing anxiously behind her, before giving up and huffing a great big sigh.

“Fiiine. I don’t know, okay? I think if someone bad came after Molly I would punch them in the face and kick them into the sunset, but I would also be very upset that Molly’s problems are being put on us. That’s what I think.” She hesitates. “But… also… I like Mollymauk and I think that I would watch his back just because…” She shrugs. “It’s nice having someone like me in the group.”

Yasha nods again. “You remind me a little of Molly sometimes.”

“Okay, but in a pretty sparkly fun way? Or a sneaky, maybe he is lying and we are not sure because he is so good at it way?”

“The sparkle… the sparkle fun way?” Yasha says uncertainly.

Jester claps. “Yes. I think so too.” She grabs Yasha by the hand. “Let’s pick some flowers. I want to show you how to make a flower crown so you can wear it. It will be so cute. C’mon!”

Yasha, surprised, follows her to the meadow and any other questions she definitely had are forgotten.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

A shadow falls over his book and Caleb blinks a moment before looking up. He’s seated cross-legged by the wheel of their wagon, reading by the late-day sun. The group decided to call it early today and just enjoy some time relaxing. Yasha is standing behind him, staring, and blocking the light. She is wearing an elaborate flower-crowd of braided daisies and buttercups and while Caleb is processing that she seems to resolve herself, folding her arms in a business-like manner. He carefully closes his book and knits his fingers over the cover.

“Hello, Yasha. How can I help you?”

“I have a question,” she says. Then, hearing herself aloud, seems to think that was too blunt and adds, “If you don’t mind.”

“It’s quite alright. What’s bothering you?”

Yasha takes a seat in front of him, legs folded, back straight. She folds her arms again and looks seriously at him which is a mildly intimidating thing because Yasha is a towering, tangle of pale and dark and muscle, the tensile strength of her coiled at rest before him. Caleb doesn’t profess to understand her – not her likelihood to disappear, her willingness to fight for them, her rapport with Mollymauk, any of it. She stands sentinel and unknowable, this barbarian woman, her bright eyes smoky with kohl, her face lined by ink and signifying nothing he understands.

“Do you think this group will stay together?” she demands.

Caleb tilts his head.

“Well, it’s still a bit early, but… we have embarked now on a serious business venture together and have, willingly or not, become the keeper of each other’s secrets in many respects. That certainly has binding power, uh, Yasha, but I can’t claim to know what might happen.” He waits to see if she has thoughts about this, but when she just waits for elaboration, he adds, “I do want this group to work. I… I like having people to travel with. It’s safer.”

She nods.

“I also happen to like these people. In case you were wondering.”

“Thank you, Caleb. Can I ask something else?”

Caleb smiles a little, befuddled at her formality. “Of course.”

“Who in this group do you view as the greatest liability?”

“Oh,” Caleb says and frowns down at his book. He looks back at Yasha after a moment. “I don’t think I know. I don’t know everyone well enough to say who might prove a burden. I think that the reason we all work so well together is that each of us brings something to the whole. So, regardless of my personal opinion of anyone, losing any member of this party would be a blow.”

“Yes, but if you had to lose someone.”

“Yasha, why are you asking me this?”

She looks down at her lap, her lovely brow knit. “It would be good to know.”

Caleb taps his fingers against the front of his book. “Are you feeling restless again?”

She lifts her eyes and it’s impossible not to be caught in them, like being taken off guard by a sudden storm front, the pale gray of her stare rushing over him and he around her, he always things he catches the strangest whiff of ionized air, like the smell after a lightning strike. Lightning and floral ethers mixed with leather. That’s how Yasha smells to him and when she looks at him, he thinks, _She won’t stay with us. She’s barely here right now._

“Not now,” she says quietly. “But I may in the future.”

“And you want to know if this group will still be here when you return.”

“I would like some notion.”

“I don’t view Mollymauk as a liability.”

Yasha blinks, hard, and that in and of itself gives her away – the mix of surprise and relief there for just a moment before she smooths it away.

“I didn’t ask about Mollymauk.”

“Yes, but he’s your friend, is he not? And its him that stays with us when you have to leave and it’s our group you track when you want to find him again. Is that not the way of it? You do not, after all, know the rest of us very well. We fought together that has certainly brought us all closer. Battle does that, uh, you know, brings people close when maybe life would not otherwise have them tolerate each other.”

Yasha says nothing.

Caleb waits for a while but when it’s clear she won’t answer a direction question about her friend, Caleb switches tack.

“Mollymauk said that he ‘needed’ this to work.”

“Yes.”

“Yasha, he is not the only one. We all, I think, need this work.” When she says nothing, he adds, “I can’t speak for the future, but I myself would not agree with a course of action that required the abandoning of anyone in our number, particularly if they have been acting in good faith. I think… I think Mollymauk acts in good faith, despite the possible entanglement of his past.”

Yasha is quiet for a moment.

“Thank you, Caleb.” A pause.  “Does Nott feel the same?”

“Nott holds her own council,” Caleb says carefully, “but she agrees with me that this party needs to hold together. And while she may not understand Molly’s resistance to remembering… she… she said she wants to help him. And she said it under Jester’s truth spell, so you know she is genuine. I think that says enough.”

He watches Yasha take that in, consider it, then get to her feet and walk away.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

“Beauregard, can I –?”

“Oh, sweet fuck!” Beau drops absolutely everything in her hands and spins around to find a very befuddled Yasha staring down at her. She’s got flowers in her hair and her eyes are the color of a cold autumn sky. She’s super pretty and – fucking gods, really? _Focus_. Beau quickly drops her fists. “Uh… Hi, Yasha, you’re sure quiet for someone who’s like six million feet tall. What… what’s up? Nice flower crown. It matches your… face.”

Yasha’s brow knits faintly in confusion and Beau feels entire tracts of her smaller intestine wither and die of pure regret. Yasha gingerly touches the fluffy floral arrangement that halos her head, as if she’d forgotten about it and a very faint little smile does ghost her lips for a moment. It’s, you know, really great and Beau feels her stomach kind of turn over. Basically, Yasha is beating up Beau’s guts just by standing there. It’s terrifying.

“Oh, uh, thank you,” Yasha says. “Jester did it.”

“You like flowers?”

“Well, sure.”

Beau files that away for later, nodding and folding her arms. “Cool, cool, cool. So… uh, wanna help me get some of this stuff out? Molly said he can put stew together out of it or something?”

Yasha inspects all the food items that Beauregard just dropped all over the grass. She’d been elbow deep in one of the supply crates, specifically, the vegetables and spices. There is also a hunk of beef wrapped in butcher paper, tingling slightly with a chilling enchantment. The crate is fragrant with fresh produce and the smell of rosemary. Beau had sniff-tested a few of the little glass spice bottles, which are unlabeled, so she assumes someone else knows what’s what.

“Oh,” Yasha says, brows lifting. “He’s making Gustav’s trail slop?”

“Well… that doesn’t sound as nice as he made it sound.”

Yasha chuckles. “No, no. It’s really good. You see, whenever the circus did well, Gustav would treat everyone and buy really good food and ingredients to make this meal. It was a circus, lots of people, so a stew is a lot easier to make and hand out in bulk than a lot of other things.” Her smile gets nostalgic. “Molly is doing the same. I guess he thinks we deserve something nice after all we’ve been doing.”

Beau regards the nice wheel of cheese and the small crate of vegetables with new interest.

“So this is like a ‘good job you fuckers’ kind of soup?”

“Sure.”

“He paid a lot of fuckin’ money for it. So that’s pretty cool of him.” She frowns. “I should probably ask him if he wants to split the tab if he’s sharing… hmm…”

“He’ll probably refuse. He’ll know you’d rather keep your money. If Fjord offered, though, he’d take the money since Fjord likes to keep things fair.”

“Yasha, real talk, your friend is really confusing sometimes.”

“I know.” Yasha kneels down and starts gathering onions and corn into her arms. “But I think it’s understandable and he’s less confusing than some people I’ve met.” She stands up with all the ingredients in her arms. “Where… do I…?”

“Oh right. Follow me.”

Beauregard grabs the spice box and the beef and leads Yasha to the fire-side where a small iron pot is waiting. Beau dumps her findings on a blanket she laid out earlier, then turns and takes the more delicate veggies from Yasha’s arms. Yasha dumps the rest in the pile and Beauregard carefully places the tomato on top of the rest. It’s a beautiful pile of food. An extravagant amount of it actually. Like, signs of wealth and happiness, kind of cornucopia of food.

“Man, I’m kind of looking forward to this,” Beau says, beaming. “Think you sold me on it, Yasha.”

“I’m glad.” She pauses. “Beauregard?”

“Yup?”

“Do you like everyone in this group?”

Beau freezes a little. “Uhh, why do you ask?”

“I’m curious.”

“Well, I mean, I like some people more than other people. Like… some of them a lot more than other people, uh, actually.” She clears her throat a little, loudly. “But, yeah, mostly I don’t think everyone in the group is like a monsterous fuckin’ asshole or anything. I mean, okay, for a while there I did think that. But now I don’t. Mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“Sure, I mean… Caleb is still a bit sketch and Nott literally keeps stealing things from us sometimes and, sorry, Molly has some weird shit going on and… well Fjord might actually be, like, possessed by water demons or something, but not in an evil way? Maybe.” She pauses. “Okay, how about this, they’re all sketchy assholes but they’re _my_ sketchy assholes. How about that?”

“That seems reasonable.”

“Why? Are you worried someone doesn’t like you? Because I think everyone in the group likes you, Yasha. Like… definitely some more than others, uh, but you’re pretty cool.” She mimes grabbing a sword two handed. “Like… that Victory Pit shit? That was fucking awesome. I think after that you could punch Fjord in the face and he’d still be like, ‘Yeah, Yasha’s cool.’”

Yasha smiles at her. Beau feels her face heat up and really hopes the firelight is hiding it.

“Thank you, Beau.”

“N-no problem.”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

“Thought you’n I might have some words.”

Yasha moves with much more stealth than her towering frame might suggest possible, but Fjord still picks up her approach as she circles the camp and makes her way from Jester, to Caleb, then after a while helping Molly finish with the feeding of the horses, make her way around the long side of the camp to find him. He’s finishing with the last of securing the tents, fresh canvas, big ones too. Mollymauk overpaid for the lot, Fjord would guess, but he’s noticed that haggling price isn’t generally something Molly does when he’s got spare coin.

He’s a might curious about that, coming from a carnie grifter and self-professed conman, a spot of generosity seems odd, but then again who among them isn’t that?

“I have a question,” Yasha says, voice soft and even.

“Alright. Shoot.”

“Don’t mean to be blunt but I think in this case I need to be.”

“Okay. I’m warned.”

“You want to protect the people in this group, correct?”

Fjord stops what he’s doing then, giving Yasha his full attention. She’s watching him with those strange blue eyes of hers, halogen clear and nitrogenous cold, like the cold in the stratosphere above old mountains. He folds his arms across his chest and shifts his weight a little, tilting his head.

“Of course I do. Do you… think I don’t?”

She doesn’t respond immediately, just… stares at him. Like she can read something written on his forehead. Makes his skin prickle a little, like there’s static in his hair, like he could shock himself off a bit of metal. She steps toward him and for a single second Fjord wonders if he should step back, wonders if it’s in his head that the air pressure around her seems to shift, like a sharp drop in barometric pressure before a storm front.

Yasha stops, near enough to him that she could touch him.

She holds out a hand, flat, to shake.

Fjord blinks.

“You swear you would protect everyone in this group?” She never breaks eye contact as she says this, holding his eyes like there is nothing, absolutely nothing else in the world. “That being in a group means you protect each other?”

“Well, hold on now,” Fjord says, drawing his head up a little. “We’re skippin’ some levels here. Yasha, why’re you asking me this?” He unfolds his arms, taking a more open stance before he goes on. “Look, no body’s gettin’ left. I know we’re not, you know, the best of people sometimes. There’s been some… larceny and such. But, meanin’ no offense to you, I’m not sure you get to make demands on my loyalty when you’re the one who says you’re like to take off at any moment.”

Yasha lowers her hand, eyes dropping aside then for a moment, lips parting on what might be the start of a response but she never gets that far. She just… sighs and looks back at him, chin raised.

“Yes. I’ve made my situation clear. And you owe me nothing of course. I don’t ask anything on my behalf.”

“Whoa, Hey. That’s not what I meant.”

“What do you mean then?”

He sighs.

“I don’t mean to say you’re not part of group or anything. I’m just saying it’s a little odd you’re so invested when you’re likely to wander. That’s all.” He huffs a little. “Why’re you so nervous about this?”

“Because I may be fine on my own, but…” A pause. Her eyes flicker up and to the right, then back to him. “But not everyone else is. Some people were not designed to be on their own and I think we have a few people like that in this group.”

“Well, I agree, and I’ll do my piece to keep them in company, but at the end of the day you can’t be responsible for other people, Yasha.” He tilts his head. “I’m gettin’ a sense you’re feeling obligated to someone or something and maybe you should consider that’s not your bag to hold, if you follow.”

She says nothing for a while then, “It a bag I want to hold, how about that?”

“Well, that’s fine.” Fjord glances toward the group where Jester is carefully braiding a flower crown around Nott’s head while Molly look on, giving commentary. He looks back to Yasha and shrugs. “I got a few bags like that.”

“Will you hold this group together, Fjord?”

“Appreciate the vote of confidence, but what makes you think I can hold anything together?”

“I just know you can.” She says it so matter-of-factly, like gravity, like momentum and kinetic force. She looks at him and her eyes are pale and her tone objective. “You’re the one if anyone will.”

Fjord heaves a sigh, pressing the knuckle of his index finger briefly against his brow. “Look, I intend to do my damnedest. Not telling anybody what to do, but anyone that wants to stick with us, does right by us… yeah, we’re protecting each other. Kinda thought that was understood at this point.”

“You’ll swear it?” Yasha demands, sticking her hand out again.

He reaches for her hand.

She yanks it back suddenly, his fingers brushing hers and there’s a spark of static electricity off her so sharp his skin stings, but she doesn’t notice.

“Don’t swear,” she whispers, “unless you mean it.”

A beat.

“I don’t swear anything I don’t mean, Yasha. I already had it well in my head there aint anyone in our crew I wouldn’t lay down my life for if the occasion really called for it.” He clears his throat. “Not, you know, that I’m lining up to do that real speedy or nothin’ but… yeah. That’s the intent.” He looks at her. “I’m curious what it is that keeps calling you away, particularly since it’s clear you got reasons to stick with us.”

“I can’t tell you that. Not… not yet anyway.”

“And doing… whatever it is you do. That’s more important than sticking with Mollymauk?”

She reacts to that. Her eyes go wide.

“No! Not _more_  important,” she blurts, rather before she can stop herself. She freezes, a deer caught in a lightning strike for a moment… then she sighs. “It’s not about importance,” she goes on reluctantly, like he tricked it out of her. “It’s about… about what I need to do. It’s not really a choice for me, you understand. I can’t stay and that, well, um, that leaves my dear friend with all of you.”

“And you’re frettin’ that we’ll lose our fuckin’ shit and he’ll be on his own somewhere? Is that right?”

“Yes, I suppose.”

“For Molly’s sake? Just Molly?”

She says nothing for a moment.

But after that moment she says, reluctantly, “The circus was always there for us both, but Molly has only ever known a life among friends. Gustav and the others they…” She sighs. “They loved him. They protected him I think from many things. He believes in that kind of loyalty. I think he believes it in a way… perhaps, that not everyone does. Maybe not even everyone here in this group.” She looks uncomfortable. “haven’t known you very long you see. So it’s hard to tell.”

Fjord nods.

“Okay, I get you. Look, I won’t speak for the group but from what I gather so far, everyone agrees the point of sticking together is to look out for one another. Alright? And, personally, I can at least promise you this: I won’t leave anyone behind. I won’t leave Molly behind unless he tells me to.” He offers her a hand. “And I swear it.”

She smiles finally and they shake on it.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

“You’re being quite the social butterfly today,” says Mollymauk as she comes over to greet him. He’s patting one of the horses, feeding it a sugar cube. He’s probably fed them all sugar cubes so they’ll like him better than everyone else. He holds still, grinning as she loops companionable arms around his shoulders from behind and drops her chin on the top of his head, between his horns. He chuckles. “Well, you’re cuddly. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Just chatting. Did you see my flower crown?”

“Very fetching, my dear.”

“I like these people, Molly.”

“Me too! Aren’t they fun?”

“Yes.” She pauses. “I do still miss the circus though, sometimes.”

“Agreed, but it squint at Beau just right, she kind of looks like an acrobat. We can make due.” He shrugs. “And I’m having a good time with them actually, despite everything.”

“They’re good group for you.”

“For us, Yasha,” he says, admonishing. “You’re one of us even if you’re wandering.” He pauses when she squeezes his shoulders a little harder, collaring an arm around his chest and burying part of her face against his hair. His heartbeat drums against her palm. She inhales the faint scent of lavender and it centers her, grounds hers to the earth and she hears Molly laugh a little. “Are you alright?”

“I’m feeling… restless, Molly.”

“Oh.” He thinks on that, then pats her arm where it’s looped over his collarbone. “Well, like I said, that’s alright. I’ll be thinking of you as you go and anticipating you’re return. The largest, most dangerous house cat in the world.” He leans his weight back on her chest, like she’s a wall to brace against. “When do you think? Do you know?”

“I never know for sure,” she murmurs. “I just feel it. Like… like you feel a storm coming in your bones or aching in an old wound, you know? I can feel it like that, through my whole body.”

“Kinky.”

She flexes her arm around his neck, threatening a headlock. He laughs.

“It’s okay. Everyone understands.”

She relaxes her arm and drops her chin between his horns again. “You’ll be careful while I’m gone, won’t you?”

The palm of his right hand is hooked in the crook of her elbow, his weight still leaning on her.

“Aren’t I always?” he asks, smiling.

“No. You are a reckless idiot who would die in a ditch if left unattended for too long.”

He snickers.

“Don’t get in trouble without me, Mollymauk Tealeaf.”

He turns his head a little, ducking his chin a little to keep his horns for knocking into her chin. He grins at her over his shoulder.

“Are you worried about me?”

“Yes,” she says.

She said that too plainly. Molly’s expression shifts, becomes puzzled.

“Whatever for?”

 _Because_ , Yasha thinks, blank-faced, _you overpay for tents and give money to highway robbers. Because you bring me tea and buy sugar cubes for cart horses. Because Lucien. Because you’re forward and familiar and not everyone likes that. Because you look like you do. You took drugs in a graveyard. You smirk like that. Because you don’t know better. A circus taught you what family looks like and your magic demands you bleed for it. Because I can’t be there looking for the bottle in the crowd that’s winding its way towards you and I feel it like thunder after the flash that it’s coming._

But what she says is, “Because you’re my very good friend, Mollymauk.”  

“Awwww,” he says, drawing the vowel out lazily. “You’re making me blush.”

“Nothing makes you blush.”

Molly laughs again, a bright flashing sound catching in his throat. He turns in her arms so he can face her and he searches her face in that curious way he does sometimes and Yasha thinks, quietly and a little distantly, that she has no concept of home… but something very close to it exists in that familiar grin. So she taps him on the nose with one finger and mouths ‘boop’. He grins. He smiles so hard his eyes close with the beaming force of it, his tail lashing like a cat’s behind him. He settles a bit and pokes her in the collarbone.

“This is a really good group, you know. Honestly. No one minds that you have to come and go. They understand. I know they do.” He reaches up and pats her cheek. “They love you.”

She’s not sure why that makes her hug him, but it does.

“Oof! Uh, hello.” Molly chuckles, winded. “What’s all this about? Hey. It’s okay.” He pats her on the back, pressing his palms into her shoulder blades then gently keeps patting her with one hand when she doesn’t relinquish her hold. “Yasha? What’re we doing here? You’re starting to worry me, love.”

“Could we have tea or something?” She pulls away, her hands on his shoulders. “I feel like I could use some of… what is it? Camo… something?”

“Chamomile?” he says, tilting his head and arching a dark purple brow. “Well obviously, I’d be delighted, but I feel like you need like… a shot of something, not a cup of tea. But pick your poison, I’ll play along – Oh.” He blinks, holding still when she plants a fond but purposeful kiss against his forehead. “What was that for?”

“Tea?” she insists.

He rolls his eyes. “Okay, okay. Yeesh. And they say I’m the oddball.”

She follows Molly to the wagon where he roots in his pack for some tea. He does make that soup for everyone and enough tea for the whole group and before the sun goes down, everyone is happy, chatting amiably around the fire and Yasha thinks, maybe, whatever she’s feeling is far away. That this contentment can stretch into the horizon for a while. That things will be okay. Surely, for at least a little while longer. 

**Author's Note:**

> Can you tell I'm upset about episode 26? BECAUSE I AM. SOMEONE TALK TO ME ABOUT THIS.


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